Social Psychiatry

Abstract

Abstract Social cognitive neuroscience is an emerging discipline that bridges across several disciplines and includes the concepts of social brain and social psychiatry. Simply speaking, social brain is the biological substrate of what social psychiatry entails. Our sociality is the outcome of an intricate and multi-dimensional relationship between the size of the social brain, the richness as well as the selectivity of its neural networks and the behavioral complexities emanating from the bonded relationships that underpin our social coalitions. Although no specific brain area is specifically designated as the social brain, accumulating data from the neuroimaging and cognitive neuroscience research reveal that distinct neuronal networks do subserve our social functionings and also that the social information processing may actually be different non-social information processing. Our various social functioning and the related processes serve as the operational domains for both the social brain as well as social psychiatry. Their scopes are quite broad and range from epidemiological/anthropological research and an indistinct boundary with individual or group psychotherapy at one end, and quite precise brain mapping, genetic, neurochemical studies and targeted neuromodulation and integrative psychiatric interventions at the other end. This chapter embarks upon these fascinating aspects from social cognitive neuroscience, biological, developmental and spiritual perspectives and also discusses some therapeutic implications, both actual and potential.